IR 169: Blog 20, 14 May 2020: IR 169 at Juvincourt, 1917 (Part I)
Introduction: In Blog 20, we are resetting the time clock up to spring, 1917. For background, Blog Ten (23 February 2020: A Tank Graveyard, 1917) addressed IR 169’s introduction in the Aisne sector, in April 1917. IR 169, and its parent 52nd Division, was pulled into lines here when French troops, as a component in the great Nivelle offensive, nearly broke through German lines in the vicinity of the Juvincourt. IR 169 entered front lines on 21 April, where the 52nd Division was assigned to defend the easternmost portion of the Chemin des Dames line. The realignment of lines required IR 169 to dig new trenches while under extreme artillery bombardment. A primary source in this account comes from the memoirs of Leutnant Otto Lais, Executive Officer for IR 169’s 2nd Machine Gun Company (2 MGC).
The Juvincourt Lines and the Winterberg
At dawn on 30 April 1917, a heavy French bombardment blasted the German positons. 18 French observation balloons flew overhead, leading to concerns that a French ground attack was imminent. German artillery responded with a strong counter-fire. The earth shook as a massive explosion came from the French lines. The German shells had scored a direct hit on a French ammunition depot. Innumerable secondary explosions and plums of dark smoke filled the air, blanketing some of the balloons. Although no infantry attack followed, the artillery duel lasted throughout the day, damaging the German earthworks and killing scores of infantrymen. Leutnant Lais wrote how ‘sad loads of the dead’ awaited the pack wagons that would transport them to the rear.
By early May, artillery fires directed in the Juvincourt sector subsided. IR 169 troops used this opportunity to set about constructing a full battle zone defensive system as prescribed in the German’s evolving Stellungsbau doctrine. At the company and battalion levels, the center piece of this effort was to establish networks of reinforced machine gun nests that could enfilade all obstacles.
Lais’ memoirs detailed how the regiment inserted machine gun positions that dominated every transition of terrain, every hollow and slope. The troops went to extreme lengths to camouflage the machine gun bunkers. Enemy observers posted on the Bois des Buttes, a wooded hill mass (elevation 108 meters) above La Ville, directed uncannily accurate artillery fires deep into German lines. The Germans used netting to enable the placement of vegetation over newly constructed bunkers. Great care was taken to avoid creating visible trails to the resupply paths leading to Juvincourt. To preserve the image of fresh early morning dew on the grass, a series of removable planks were connected to permit foot transit during hours of darkness.
Strict orders were given for gunners to not fire their machine guns at aircraft or other fleeting targets. This mandate was so heavily reinforced that it became the basis of a sarcastic joke, with the sergeant asking a private what he would if coming under attack. The response; “Sir, I would make a report!”
Another looming terrain feature, the start of the eastern slope of the storied Chemin des Dames, stood three miles to the east. Here, the Californie Plateau, just north of the shattered village of Craonne, was known the Germans as the ‘Winterberg.’ Some of the war’s most intensive combat unfolded on the spot. In the months to come, IR 169 faced its share of horrors on the Winterberg. [IR 169 operations on the Winterberg in July 1917 will be the subject of a future series of blogs.] As the greater French Neville Offensive stalled, the Winterberg grew in tactical significance, as it marked the far eastern beginning of the Chemin des Dames ridgeline. A French breakthrough at this point would split the German lines between the Aisne Valley heights and the eastern plains before Juvincourt. Possession of the Californie Plateau was a top objective for both armies.
On 5 May, the men in the trenches of Juvincourt observed an enormous bombardment on the cusp of the Winterberg. Lais recalled how the entire crest of the ridgeline was seemingly wrapped in fire, with so much blood was to be spilled on and around it. What the IR 169 men witnessed that day was the climax of a 72 hour sustained French assault, one of many such actions through July 1917 in the Winterberg saga.
German WW I authority Jack Sheldon, in The German Army in the Spring Offensives 1917 provides a vivid description of the horrors facing the German defenders trapped in a tunnel on the northern face of the Winterberg during this attack.
“The expression ‘a living hell’ is a much overused cliché, but it is hard to think of any other way of describing the situation in the Winterberg Tunnel.” The entrance to a tunnel that was used to house forward-deployed reserves and ammunition stocks caught fire and exploded. The opening, as well as ventilation shafts, were blocked and the enclosure filled with poisonous fumes. Two complete companies of Reserve IR 111 were trapped, with almost all of those not immediately killed in the explosion died of suffocation, dehydration or suicide. When engineers finally dug into the tunnel six days later, only three men, all close to death, were left alive.”
Lais visited this site in early August. He wrote how ‘The sight of the now-exposed tunnel entrance is shocking. Many of the dead lay with rifles in arms and helmets on their heads, others were stripped of uniforms, and some had silently suffocated further inside the tunnel.’
By the end of May 5, French troops, at an enormous cost of men, finally reached the summit of the Winterberg. Desperate German counterattacks in the next two days pushed the French back. The sum of this fighting resulted in a stalemate of French troops holding the southern slope and Germans the northern side.
Next Blog: The next blog in this Juvincourt series focuses on a German trench raid.
Maps and Pictures:
MAP: In this Google Map screenshot, from the map page of www.ironregiment169.com, German lines in the initial phases of the Neville Offensive are in blue. IR 169 defended the area before Juvincourt. The Bois des Buttes is to the southwest and the Winterberg is to the west. The red lines reflect German positions in November, 1917.
PICTURES: (1) The Bois des Buttes taken from the vantage of the German Juvincourt lines. (2) This view is from the tower on the eastern edge of the Chemin des Dames, above the ruins of Craonne. Juvincourt is three miles in the distance. [Both images taken from my 2019 visit to the battlefields.]